My belated jam documentation:
An air hockey table that could move the objects (the objects might have beveled edges so the air could force them one direction or another)
Jeff also added to this idea by mentioning that you can do this with an array of magnets and magnetic objects.
We might want the platform to have a way to say, "hey, move this green cube over to this corner," if none of our amazing bots can manage to do it. Or even if they can, it is good to know the destination of the green cube by projecting a placeholder.
Thinking about moving coasters/foam core on whiteboards: What if you could embed a bunch of piezos on the foam core and make them vibrate their way over towards where they needed to go? Is it feasible to have these embedded paper speakers that actually actuate the paper? (Hannah Perner Wilson rocking the paper speakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1F5Gg4bG3o)
Other thoughts. We need a calendar robot!
On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Glen Chiacchieri wrote:
For my part of the Robotic Jam, I started thinking about why you would want robotic spaces. (here are the notes I made)My first thought was to bring physical objects toward you, but this didn't strike me as a particularly important since we can already go get things ourselves. Then I thought, why aren't people authoring spaces now? One thing that came to mind was how much friction there was in setting up and changing spaces around. Machines can be faster and more precise than humans, so maybe they could be used for allowing custom-authored spaces.I imagined people authoring spaces that you could download to your own house, like a space scene, or calming flower scene (appropriating your own existing furniture and using projections):Everyone should be able to have a TeamLab kind of experience in their own home if they want.Another analogy is the way that people create levels in Mario Maker for other people to play, people could author spaces for other people to be in. I imagine making fun obstacle courses and things, but I'm sure there's more there.On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Bret Victor wrote:Recently, a couple of us started talking about "danglezones" -- a place where physical tokens could move around in three dimensions, suspended from "danglebots" on the ceiling. Robotic hanging mobiles, basically.For the jam, I mocked up a danglezone. Toby used an orrery model to motivate early Apparatus, so I made a dangly orrery, with sun, earth, moon, mars, comet, and giant space fish. (I had run out of astronomical objects and started thinking about a dangly aquarium instead.)The objects are suspended from magnetic hooks that can be moved using "robots" (dragging handles) on top of the ceiling. Each suspension point can be raised or lowered with a "winch" (pulling on the string).I was imagining a three-dimensional physical Apparatus, where one could bring in objects by hand and define mathematical relationships between them, and then as you move an object by hand, the other objects move automatically. It's an Apparatus you can stand inside with other people and manipulate with your hands.Like most dangly things, it doesn't photograph well.Here's a video of the earth and a comet going around the sun.
